It is strange that we can define ourselves, at times, by what we do not have. The mind seems to have a great capacity to compare its condition to other more "desirable" conditions. This can include losses we perceive ourseves to have had. When we look at our life in terms of what we do not have, or what did not work out for us, we feel a deep sense of lack and can cultivate a profound sense of dissatisfaction. If we spend more time noticing what we have lost rather than what we actually have, it is clear that, paradoxically, it is not truly lost, but is still present and recurring in a transformed form to remind us or even haunt us with its presence.
Losing too is still ours;
and even forgetting
still has a shape in the kindgdom of transformation.
When something's let go of, it circles;
and though we are rarely the center of the circle,
it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous curve.”
Rilke
